The present invention is directed to a methods, systems and devices for determining a baseball player""s direct contributions to increasing or decreasing the chances of winning baseball games.
Of all the major professional sports, baseball is uniquely suited to using statistical analysis methods to quantitatively evaluate and compare a player""s individual contribution to winning or losing a baseball game. This is due to the fact that a baseball game can be broken down into single discrete events typically involving only two players at one time, for example, the batter and the pitcher. The outcome of each of these discrete events can be measured in terms of certain well established conventional statistics, for example, at-bats, hits, runs, runs-batted-in (RBI""s), home runs, etc. for a hitter and innings pitched, wins, losses, walks, strike-outs, hits, etc. by a pitcher. Such conventional statistics have the advantage of being based on recording and accumulating data from easily identifiable discrete events. As a result, there is a long history of recording such conventional statistics so that a player""s performance can be measured throughout a season or over an entire career. Such conventional statistics can then, in principle, be compared with any hitter or pitcher who has ever played the game.
Such comparisons are inevitably confounded with numerous hidden variables and uncertainties that cloud the conclusions that can be drawn based on such conventional statistics. For example, significant variations in a player""s statistics can vary from year-to-year or decade-to-decade due solely to differences in the playing conditions. Well known examples include a change in the height of the pitcher""s mound, the xe2x80x9cjuicedxe2x80x9d baseballs that suddenly allow home runs to fly out of the park, an out-blowing wind at Wrigley Field, the Green Monster in Fenway, or the high altitudes that can be a statistical disaster for a home town pitcher in of Colorado, who plays about half his games in a hitter""s paradise.
In addition, and perhaps more importantly, many of the conventional statistics can be substantially distorted by events over which the player has no control. This may be particularly true for pitchers. For example, a mediocre starting pitcher may spend years with a team that has a stellar bullpen, or that has a single ace reliever who is the envy of the rest of the league. In such cases, whenever that starting pitcher happens to leave the game with a one or two run lead after the 7th or 8th innings, nearly 100% of those small leads may be recorded as a xe2x80x9cwinxe2x80x9d for that pitcher. In contrast, an All-Star starter may be stuck for years with a bullpen that is a virtual disaster, for which nearly all of his small leads late inning leads melt into xe2x80x9cno-decisions.xe2x80x9d
On reflection, it is a peculiar anomaly of baseball that a pitcher, who performs solely as a defensive player, is rated so heavily by an outcome, a victory, that includes an equally important offensive component. While the strength of a pitcher""s performance may have a large impact on the outcome, it is self evident that a pitcher can never win a game completely on his own based solely on his pitching performance.
Attempts have been made to evaluate a starting pitcher""s performance independent of a pitcher""s support, either from his team""s offense or from his team""s relievers, such as the xe2x80x9cSNWLxe2x80x9d method as described in xe2x80x9cSupport-Neutral Statistics-A Method of Evaluating the True Quality of a Pitcher""s Start, Michael Wolverton, BTN Article, http://www.baseballprospectus.con/statistics/snwl/snwlart/; Aug. 14, 2001, references cited therein. Application of the SNWL method has shown that there can be substantial discrepancies between a pitcher""s official Won/Loss (W/L) record and a pitcher""s Support-Neutral Won/Loss Record. For example, the 2001 Support-Neutral W/L Report showed that, although Roger Clemens had an official W/L record of 20-3, his Support-Neutral W/L was only 13.8-9.4. This amounted to an SNWL winning xe2x80x9cpercentagexe2x80x9d of only 0.594, which was only 11th best in the AL in 2001. The SNWL method, not surprisingly, identified Clemens as the xe2x80x9cLuckiestxe2x80x9d starter in the Major Leagues in 2001.
Such a striking contrast between the official W/L record and the SNWL record, which seems to be a far more accurate measure of Clemen""s 2001 season, did not deter the baseball writers from awarding Clemens his 6th Cy Young award. The long-established aura surrounding a 20-game winner, especially one with only 3 official losses, apparently obscured any arguments that might have been mounted in behalf of a more detailed evaluation of Clemen""s 2001 record. Nevertheless, such SNWL numbers highlight the need for continuing to strive for more reliable, and more broadly accepted, methods for evaluating a pitcher""s performance.
Still another deficiency in the conventional statistics, as well as the SNWL method, is that they do not provide any meaningful comparison between the relative contribution of starting pitchers as compared with so-called everyday position players, or even as compared with relief pitchers. Nor can they quantitatively measure the value of outstanding defensive plays by an acrobatic, cart-wheeling, shortstop or by a weak hitting, but sensational third baseman who almost single-handedly turns a World Series around with his glove rather than his bat. Ironically, rather than detracting from the value of such conventional statistics, such inequities may in a certain perverse way increase their perceived value, merely by exacerbating the endless debates and controversies that have become the beloved folklore of dedicated baseball fans.
One such debate occurs almost annually whenever voting time comes for deciding who should win the MVP award, which by its name would appear to be intended for the xe2x80x9cmost valuable playerxe2x80x9d. It is a virtual foregone conclusion that a player from a second-rate or last place team will never again win the award for, as one last place owner""s famous saying goes, xe2x80x9cwe could still have come in last without him.xe2x80x9d Alternatively, there are biased MVP voters who as a matter of principle will not vote for a pitcher, however deserving. For example, even when a pitcher has season stats matching the best of any pitcher over the entire 20th century of Major League Baseball, that pitcher may not get listed by certain sportswriters as being even within the top ten of the most valuable players. Such heavily biased voting can have a disproportionate weight on the overall outcome of the voting, in this case, simply because a pitcher is not an xe2x80x9ceverydayxe2x80x9d position player. The simple fact is that, for the one game in four or five that the starting pitcher is on the mound for 100-130 pitches, the outcome of the game usually rests more squarely on his shoulders than on any other player on the field. One would think that such a consideration might tip the balance in his favor when the elusive term xe2x80x9cmost valuablexe2x80x9d is applied to his performance. Though a starting pitcher""s appearances are less frequent then everyday position players, his role is far larger per game played.
Such biased voting also does not take into perspective the many games in which the position player may contribute virtually nothing towards producing a victory, or in some cases, may even make a costly error that loses the game. At best, a few of the voting reporters may make an exception and vote for a pitcher as MVP, but only when that pitcher has had a truly spectacular year. Refusal to vote for a pitcher under any circumstances as the most valuable player is perhaps not totally without merit, since there is simply no reliable means now available for measuring the relative contribution of a pitcher as compared with a position player.
The present invention is directed toward developing a statistically-based methods, systems and devices that address these problems.
The present invention is directed to measuring a baseball player""s actual direct contribution to achieving the ultimate goal of every play of a baseball game, which is to help that player""s team win that baseball game. Such a method may be used to measure and compare every player""s direct contribution in the course of a season or over an overall career, independent of whether that player is a base-stealing, lead-off, singles hitter; a run-producing slugger; an outstanding 8-inning-per-start, starting pitcher; an ace reliever; or xe2x80x9conlyxe2x80x9d the best fielding shortstop or third baseman who ever played the game.
In particular, the present invention is directed to a method of measuring a baseball player""s contributions to winning by comparing how much a team""s probability of winning increases or decrease based on that player""s direct contributions to the outcome of individual events in one or more baseball games. The difference in a team""s probability of winning may be compared, for example, before and after each individual event involving that player, with the difference being used as a measure of the contribution, positive or negative, of each player involved in that event. A player""s accumulated winning contribution (AWC) may be determined by accumulating all the contributions made by that player during the course of an individual game, and then those contributions may be accumulated over the duration of an entire season or, ultimately, over that player""s whole baseball playing career. Such events may include the outcome of a trip to the plate for a hitter, a batter faced by a pitcher, a defensive fielding play by a fielder or a base-running play by a base-runner. Such events may also be measured in terms of a combination of plays, for example, an entire half-inning pitched by a pitcher, where the pitcher""s direct contribution is measured in terms of the accumulated difference in that team""s probability of winning or losing between the time the pitcher goes to the mound and the time he returns to the dugout. On the other hand, to the extent that such a difference in probability can be statistically measured, the difference may be measured in terms of a single pitch thrown by the pitcher.
One of the benefits of the present invention is that it provides a method, devices and systems for quantifying a baseball player""s accumulated contribution to winning baseball games since a player""s hitting, fielding, base-running and/or pitching may all be combined into a single combined index, which may be referred to herein as a baseball player""s AWC.
More specifically, the present invention is directed to methods, systems and devices that determine a baseball player""s contribution to winning baseball games comprising, selecting an event in a baseball game in which a specified baseball player is involved; identifying a pre-event game status that exists immediately prior to the event; determining a pre-event probability for the home team winning the game based on the pre-event game status; identifying a post-event game status that exists immediately after the event; determining a post-event probability for the home team winning the game based on the post-event game status; and assigning a winning contribution to the specified baseball player based on comparing the post-event probability of winning with the pre-event probability of winning.
A particular benefit of the present invention is that it provides a method for evaluating a baseball player""s winning contribution independent of whether the player is a hitter, pitcher, fielder or base-runner. Such a benefit provides an objectively quantifiable means of comparing the relative winning contributions of a position player with a starting pitcher.